Instead of setting up a new cybersecurity agency, the state of Baden-Württemberg should, from the point of view of the German Police Union, upgrade existing authorities. “In view of the costs, the lack of competent staff, the existing competence in the police and the protection of the constitution, it would be the right decision to equip these authorities better in terms of personnel and technology than to set up a new authority,” said state chief Ralf Kusterer the Stuttgarter Nachrichten (Monday).

“Confusing state IT security infrastructure” Interior Minister Thomas Strobl ( CDU) has presented a bill to improve cybersecurity in the southwest. Among other things, a cybersecurity agency (CSA) is to be set up in spring 2021, which 2022 fully should be in operation. The ministry is now looking for experts. The background to this is that the ministry expects the number of cases to continue to increase when data is spied on and intercepted. According to the report by Stuttgarter Nachrichten , a total of 13 million euros in the state budgets for 2020 and 2021. According to the CSA “in exceptional situations digital conferences should also be carried out safely”.

The Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter in the country feared that in the draft law ” the interfaces to existing structures, namely the police, have not been adequately described and taken into account “, writes the state chairman Steffen Mayer according to the newspaper report. And the Chaos Computer Club Stuttgart warns that the “already confusing, state IT security structure” will be further complicated.

Dispute between the Greens and the CDU over the police law An already 2017 presented, stricter police law in Baden-Württemberg had been violently disputed. At the end 2019 it was initially decided in a different form, the Greens had rejected the online search initially contained in it by Interior Minister Strobl. In this amended form, the law was passed in September of this year. Strobl had already announced, however, that he would not want to forego the secret search of computers “in order to ward off serious and very serious crimes”.

(tiw )